Tuesday, September 12, 2017

Pete Brown is known chiefly as sometime lyricist for Cream, putting words into Jack Bruce's mouth on I Feel Free, White Room etc. After their split, he got his own outfit together, Pete Brown's Battered Ornaments, recording one album with them, A Meal You Can Shake Hands With in the Dark, before the rest of the band sacked him just before they played Hyde Park with the Stones (and, of course, King Crimson). Wasting no time, he formed Piblokto! releasing (deep breath) Things May Come & Things May Go, But the Art School Dance Goes on Forever within the year.

Later the same year, their second and final album, Thousands on a Raft, appeared, breaking Brown's run of ridiculously lengthily-titled albums. In case you're wondering, aside from the Titanic and Concorde, the sleeve depicts several slices of beans on toast floating in a pond (not sure how they managed that), the album title apparently being cockney (non-rhyming) slang for the aforementioned culinary delicacy. Several band members had changed in the months between the two records, the fresh blood making their presence felt immediately, as opener Aeroplane Head Woman's Cream-like tones assault your speakers.

After a piano ballad, Station Song Platform Two, the album goes completely bonkers, with the 17-minute semi-improvised Highland Song, followed on side two by If They Could Only See Me Now Parts I & II, which is almost as long. Mellotron (definitely Dave Thompson this time round) on Station Song Platform Two, with some pleasant background MkII strings.